


follow you under the bridge, and over the crosswise streets

by fiveaces



Series: come and go with me [6]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, teddy boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 18:27:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20139994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveaces/pseuds/fiveaces
Summary: “Jessie kissed me three days ago.”They both stare at her.“Jessie who?” Alfie asks the same time Tommy says, “She what?”“Eden,” Ada answers shakily. Her palms are sweaty, and she takes another drag to calm her nerves. “Jessie Eden. She kissed me three days ago, on that picnic we went to.”





	follow you under the bridge, and over the crosswise streets

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Vamillepudding for betaing this for me! You're an actual lifesaver for me and this series.
> 
> I also fixed up the paragraph spacing in all the fics, because I realised they were different.

Jessie kisses her on an overcast day under a watery sun. There is a light breeze ruffling their hair, and the sound of lapping water, and Jessie tastes like apricot jam from their picnic. Afterwards, she pulls back to stare at Ada silently for a moment before getting up and calmly walking away. Ada, lips still tingling from the force of the kiss, her blood feeling like radio static, stares at her retreating figure that’s clad in her dad’s worn-out blue jeans, the wane sunlight making the edges of Jessie’s hair glow a dull golden colour.

Jessie’s small figure turns around the corner by the old iron gate and disappears. Ada keeps staring at the now-empty space by her side, and wonders what they’re going to do now.

_There’s no going back_, she figures and, silently in her heart, is glad for that.

_______

She can’t keep it a secret for long, especially because Jessie’s the first girl she’s ever kissed, or, well, the first girl who’s ever kissed _her_. Ada liked the kiss, but she hadn’t known what to do after, stunned as she was. It was a pivotal moment in her sixteen or so years on this Earth, quite possibly one of the more important ones, too. She’s sure of it, or at the very least, wants to be sure of it. Either way, it happened, and _someone_ ought to know.

She decides to tell Tommy, but only because he’s the only one who knows anything about this kind of thing. That, and maybe he’ll have a semblance of understanding, though she’s not counting on it.

Ada knocks on his bedroom door. Alfie’s there, as usual. There’s a rustle of bedsheets on the other side, and murmuring she can’t make out before it’s opened. Tommy squints at her suspiciously.

“What do you want?”

Ada stares resolutely back at him. “I want to talk.”

“No,” Tommy says, and tries to shut the door. Ada wrestles in her knee so it can’t properly close, and gives him another look.

“C’mon, let me in,” she argues, turning red from holding the door against Tommy’s strength. She doesn’t exercise much, preferring to sit back and watch others play games. Come to think of it, she mainly watches Jessie, eyes drawn to her in her tennis uniform, with the green plaid skirt and the matching ribbons and the way she looks over at Ada with dimpled cheeks when she’s done a particularly good hit or serve. “It’ll only be a minute. Maybe.”

Tommy squints some more. “No.”

“_Tommy_,” Ada sighs, exasperated, and from beyond his shoulder she can see Alfie lying there in bed with a rucked up t-shirt and mussed hair, looking for all the world like he’s watching a particularly entertaining film, _A King In New York_ or something like that. He smiles wider when his eyes meet hers, and nods in acknowledgement. Ada ignores him. “Let me _in_.”

“Let her in, Thomas,” Alfie says imperiously from his position, sounding like a king in his own land and not the teenager he really is, who tries his best to grow a decent beard but only manages to get stubble. Ada’s heard him complain to Tommy about it at least twice now, with no hint of irony in his voice. “I’m sure it’s something important. She tends to avoid us at all costs if it can be helped, otherwise. Wouldn’t want to be caught dead around us, and I’m sure she isn’t particularly inclined to see us under the sheets, huh?”

“Exactly,” Ada nods enthusiastically, and when Tommy doesn’t budge and stands there dithering between Alfie’s encouraging words and Ada potentially invading his room, she gives one final heave and she’s in.

Tommy stumbles back and glares at her. “You didn’t have to do that. I was going to let you in.”

"You really weren't," Ada responds, pretending to brush dust off her sweater while trying to think of what to say next. “Say, you wouldn’t have a smoke, would you?”

“Oh? You’re smoking now?” Alfie asks, shifting so he’s lying on his side, propped up on an elbow and head resting on his palm. “I’d highly recommend against it. Bad habit, that. I picked it up at the tender age of twelve and haven’t quit since. Me mum went bonkers trying to make me stop, telling me all kinds of tales about black tar in the lungs and coughing up blood and whatever else. Really, she tried her hardest to convince me, but couldn’t manage to make me budge. Now look at me, six years in and still going strong. I might develop symptoms later, but I’m a lucky one so far. Thomas there isn’t as much. It might run in the family, so I’d advise against it in this case.”

Tommy whips his head around to stare balefully at him. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Your voice,” Alfie supplies helpfully, and laughs when Tommy gives him a frown. “Sweetie, you sound like you’ve participated in both World Wars.”

“Maybe I have,” Tommy replies sulkily. Ada coughs to get their attention, worrying for a second she might soon enough develop one if what Alfie’s saying is true. She doesn’t want to sound like Tommy at all: a sad, deflated balloon.

“I’ve done it once or twice,” she says when she’s got both of them looking at her. “Enough times to know how to smoke, so just hand me one, will you?”

“All right.” Surprisingly enough, or maybe not, Tommy hands her one, fishing out a fresh pack from one of his pants pockets, and eyeing her with what Ada would call fondness if she didn’t know any better.

“Thank you,” she says, always polite, and allows Alfie to hand her a lighter. She flicks it until a little flame licks up, and carefully lights up her cigarette, still pretty new to the whole thing. She inhales, coughing just a little when the smoke hits her lungs. “Anyways, I need to tell you something.”

“You keep on saying that but you’re not actually doing it,” Tommy says, raising an eyebrow. He goes over to the bed and sits in front of Alfie’s feet that poke out from underneath the sheets. “Take the chair.”

Ada does, smoothing her hands down her skirt as she sits down, cigarette dangling from her mouth. She inhales again, shifts the cigarette to her left hand and fiddles a bit with the creases on her skirt. “It’s not going to be easy,” she warns.

“Nothing ever really is,” Alfie says, more quiet than he was before. “You better say it quick––ripping off a bandage and all that. It’ll help.”

Ada nods, a lump of nervous anticipation in her throat, so every time she swallows, she can feel the beat of her heart right underneath it. “Jessie kissed me three days ago.”

They both stare at her.

“Jessie who?” Alfie asks the same time Tommy says, “She what?”

“Eden,” Ada answers shakily. Her palms are sweaty, and she takes another drag to calm her nerves. “Jessie Eden. She kissed me three days ago, on that picnic we went to.”

“Right.” Alfie speaks up first, still relaxed, but Tommy’s got his hands clenched white-knuckled on his knees, his pants bunching up around them. With a prickling jolt of realisation, Ada remembers that she hasn’t told Tommy at all about liking girls. She shouldn’t be telling him these types of things anyways, he’s _Tommy,_ and he’s kind of _weird__. _But he’s also family, and the only one who seems to be like her, as well. Tommy keeps on looking at her with his blank face, but something shifts in it.

“Right,” Alfie says again, seemingly oblivious to whatever’s happening between the two siblings. “What’s the matter with that, then? You didn’t want it? If that’s the case, and you don’t know how to get out, well, I can give you a pointer or two on how to handle types like these.”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Ada finally says, voice turning into a mumble as she goes on. “I _liked _it. I _like_ her. It’s just that, well, it’s just that––“

“That you’re scared,” Tommy interrupts. “That you don’t know what to do.”

“It happens to everyone, that sort of thing,” Alfie frowns at him. “It’s natural.”

“The type of scared she’s feeling isn’t natural at all.” Tommy’s hands tighten their grip on his knees. “The thing is, she shouldn’t be feeling scared that way, ever. She knows this, because it’ll all work out in the end even if it doesn’t seem that way right now. But she’s still scared, because maybe it _won’t; _trouble’s always around the corner whenever it comes to this.”

The lump in Ada’s throat tightens. Her blood rushes through her in a burst of adrenaline. A buzzing feeling runs all over her body, causing her to shudder and she throws the cigarette into a nearby plate half filled with chips, leaving it to smoulder.

“Exactly,” she breathes, and feels like throwing up. “Fucking— exactly.”

“Do it,” Tommy says simply. “You don’t have to tell me the details, I don’t want to know them, but, you’ve got to take that chance. It’s only so long you’ll be here, and then you can move away to do whatever you like, be whoever you like.”

“Patience,” Alfie nods in agreement, catching on to what’s being said, eyes sharp and clever as they dart from face to face, and then resting on Ada. “It’s virtue and all that. Got me to him, you know,” Alfie’s eyes flicker over to Tommy and then back to Ada. “Maybe it’ll get you to her, or someone else, eventually.”

“Yes,” Tommy says. He’s got that look on his face, the kind that makes Ada wonder why she ever doubted him as an older brother. “And if anyone tries to say anything, you just come to me alright? It’s no use, anymore, hiding around this deep in the shadows and trying to be what everyone else wants you to be. It’s hard and exhausting and makes you want to crawl right out of your skin and, frankly, I’m sick of it.”

Both Ada and Alfie look at him, and Ada feels like she’s just seen another part of Tommy that she never thought existed in the first place. Righteous Tommy, who’d ever thought of that? Not her, or Alfie, from the looks of it. Her throat is so tight, but in a different way now, like she’s ready to rise up straight into the sky.

Tommy seems to have run out of steam, shoulders stooping a bit, and his voice changes from that crystallised edge to a more hesitant one, repeating, “So, uh, you can come to me if there’s trouble like that, alright?”

“Alright,” Ada manages to say. And then, without thinking, she adds, “I promise. Thank you.”

Tommy nods, and doesn’t say anything, but there’s a pink tinge to his cheeks, the type he gets when he suddenly feels out of his comfort zone– Ada knows her brothers better than they do themselves, sometimes.

Alfie, astounded and round-eyed, regards Tommy with a gaze of wonder. “And where the fuck have _you_ been all this time?”

Tommy shrugs, not looking at any of them. Ada decides that she should go now, the curious buzzing in her body still coursing through her, before she skips out on the plan she’s already made to talk to Jessie. It’s a good note to end on, too, she thinks as she exits with a small smile at the two of them.

It isn’t until later, when she’s tucked underneath her covers and staring at the dark smudges of the picture pin-ups of landscapes on her walls, that she realises that it was a good talk. That she liked it, even if she was ready to dart out and run any second. Tommy’s surprised her more times today than he ever has in the past few years, and Ada thinks that it’s not a bad thing at all.

–––––

The next day, she goes searching for Jessie. She doesn’t find her in any of their usual spots, and is just about to head home, planning to try her luck again tomorrow, when she stumbles upon her sitting in the remains of what had once upon a time been a house and is now reduced to a large pile of rubble by the Blitz.

Jessie’s got her back turned to her, wearing a plaid shirt and her dad’s old jeans that she has to roll up into cuffs, just like she did four days ago on that picnic. Ada always used to wish she could dress like Jessie, but never got the chance: her attempts at taking her brothers stuff were always thwarted, and she won’t ever fit into the ones Finn always shyly offers after another failed attempt at cajoling John into lending her a pair whenever he catches her trying to sneak into his closet again.

“Hello,” Ada says. Rubble moves under her feet, making the crunch-rustle sound of brick and stone. “Didn’t think I’d find you here.”

She sees the lines of Jessie’s shoulders stiffen. Ada comes to a stop right next to her, levelling their feet together, and then looks down at the top of her head. Jessie doesn’t look up, but her shoulders relax. Ada sits down.

“So,” she begins. “What’ve you been up to these past couple of days?”

Jessie mumbles something, and when Ada makes a questioning sound, she lifts up her head and speaks clearer, but doesn’t look at her. “Nothing. Reading. Walking around.”

“I’ve missed you,” Ada says without hesitation, giving up her game of small talk when she comes to the conclusion that she can’t hold back on what she wants to say, especially with Jessie next to her, their arms almost brushing. She looks at the direction Jessie looks at. “You know, whenever you’re not around, everything’s boring. And it’s not only because I’ve got someone to be with, but, it’s also you. Ever since we’ve become close, I don’t know, things seem to be looking up for me.”

She says all this without moving her head, and from her peripheral vision, she can see Jessie turning to look at her. It’s blurry, but she sees her big eyes, and her pink cheeks. From the sun, and maybe something else, Ada hopes.

“What?” Jessie asks, voice hushed, as if she can’t dare to be louder and possibly break whatever’s unspooling before their eyes.

“You heard me,” Ada replies, shrugging, and then turns to look at her properly. She offers a smile. “I missed you, and our long talks, and our jokes, and our adventures. Our picnics.”

Jessie’s mouth goes open into the smallest ‘o’. She closes her mouth suddenly, jaw tense, and then looks Ada dead in the eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Surer than I can ever be,” Ada says honestly. “I want something more, too. If that’s what you wanted when you kissed me back then. I know we’ll have to be careful, and hide a bit –– but not a lot –– but I think it’s going to work out in the end. Just you see.”

Jessie’s smile is breath taking: that same dimpled smile Ada’s so endeared by, but somehow brighter. Like she’s finally gotten something right.

Ada does it before she can think better of it, leaning in to kiss her, closing her eyes when Jessie breathes shakily into it. They stay like that for a bit, kissing slowly as the sky turns orange and red and then morphs into pinks and purples, and the deepest blue. The air smells like warm, heavy stone, and the tugging, molten sensation of something new.


End file.
